


hoping one day i could be so bold

by nosecoffee



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: A little bit of Amanda at the end, Angst, Canon Compliant, Found Families, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Vogel, Martin being protective af, Shadow Puppets, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, minor injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 18:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12940968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: The guards make the mistake of giving Vogel crayons. The other Rowdies are off doing tests, and someone agreed that Vogel's too young for all that, so he's on his own for most of the day. When the guards return with the Rowdies, the walls are scrawled with art and stories from the crayons.They make Vogel scrub until it's all come off. His fingers start to bleed.(Or, a look at Vogel meeting the Rowdies, and then becoming one)





	hoping one day i could be so bold

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Good Guys" by MIKA
> 
> This was inspired by the answer Osric Chau gave to the question "what is Vogel's favourite movie?" Here's a link.
> 
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?ab_channel=BBCAmerica&v=z37LCBn0-aY

The thing is that when they bring him in, he doesn't have anyone left. Papa is dead, and mama is long gone, so where can he turn? Where can he go?

He's eight years old. The house is gone. Papa is gone. There's nothing left. (Fire ate them both while he could only stand and watch.)

And then these men tell him he's special, that they can help him, take care of him.

It's not like there's anyone out there to miss him.

So, what can he do? He goes.

~

It's nothing like he imagined, but he has a wild enough imagination. The place is almost entirely white or grey, no colours to speak of. They put him into a fancy little teal and orange jumpsuit and he sees the number "4" emblazoned on the back.

He asks them what it means.

None of them answer. They usher him out of the room, and he forgets that he left his backpack full of belongings there. They never remind him.

(He only remembers years later, and wakes up with sobs that hurt his teeth and tears that sting his eyes.)

~

Two men take him to a room, large and echoey like an empty swimming pool or a theatre, and there are two sets of bunk beds against one wall. The rest of the room is bare.

The men usher him inside. The room is empty.

They smile and nod at him when he turns to them, confused. They close the door behind him.

He finds himself crossing to the beds, sitting on them, bouncing on them. They've been slept in, and smell like sweat, and someone's been scratching tally marks into the wall on the top bunk bed, furthest from the door.

He imagines that it's some princess, waiting to be rescued.

He falls asleep on that bed, dreaming of dragons and princesses and his papa.

~

He wakes to voices and a presence on the bed with him.

"What's a little kid doin' here?" Asks a voice, right near his face.

"Is he a snack?" Asks another.

"Why is he so small?" Asks a third and final voice, from somewhere on the other top bunk bed. He blinks awake. The boy with the black hair and glasses leans in close.

He coughs. "Your breath stinks." He tells the boy with the black hair and glasses, who raises an eyebrow.

"Who are you?" The boy with the black hair and glasses asks.

"I'm...well, I don't remem-em-em-ember. I think I had a name." He responds and sits up. There are two other boys; one with a circular scar around his eye, and the other with darker skin than the first two and a nice smile. "Who are _you?"_

"I'm Martin." Says the boy with the black hair and glasses. "That's Gripps, and that's Cross."

"Those are dumb names." He giggles.

"Better'n no name at all." Says Martin. "What're ya doin' in here?"

"They said I was special." He replies, and the three share a dark look. "That they want to keep me safe."

Martin takes him gently by the shoulders as he sits up, and turns him around. he nearly shivers at the feeling of a finger tracing the number on his back. "He's one of us." Says Martin, and the other two whoop.

He turns back around to face them. Martin looks less guarded now. "You mustn't tell anyone about those names, ya hear? To them, we're Project Incubus."

"Why?"

"They don't like it when projects rename themselves." Martin turns to look at the two others, crowded at the end of the top bunk bed, furthest from the door. "Remember when we heard what they did to Project Marzanna after she told them that weren't her name no more?" They nod, grimly.

He doesn't know what any of this means.

He cocks his head to the side. "Is this your bed?"

Martin nods. "Yes. I'm a little angry that you're sleepin' in it."

"Are you a princess?" Martin seems taken aback by this question.

"Why would I be a princess?" He asks.

He shrugs, and points to the marks gauged into the hard wall. "Only princesses get locked in towers, and only princesses tally the wall."

Martin looks to his two friend and the one called Gripps grins, giving him the thumbs up. The one called Cross nods. "Yeah." Martin agrees. "I'm a princess. And I guess you're one of us, now. Which means, we gotta give you a name."

~

They call him Vogel. Vogel doesn't know why. He just knows that's the name they give him. He just knows he's a part of Project Incubus - or the Rowdy Three, they call themselves, within the confines of their room.

The guards make the mistake of giving Vogel crayons. The other Rowdies are off doing tests, and _someone_ agreed with  _someone else_  that Vogel's too young for all that, so he's on his own for most of the day. When the guards return with the Rowdies, the walls are scrawled with art and stories from the crayons.

They make Vogel scrub until it's all come off. His fingers start to bleed. They pull the other Rowdies from the room. They let him cry, don't pity him, keep the others away until it's all cleaned up. Only then do they let the Rowdies back in.

Martin lets Vogel curl up in a ball in his lap. Holds his hands and smooths out his fingers. Gripps sings a lullaby, Cross taps out a beat on the floor, looking ashen, like he can't believe they'd do that to Vogel. (They all look like that, but mostly Martin looks angry. It'll take years for Vogel to fully realise why.)

Vogel falls asleep like that, and when he wakes up, they're all still there, gathered around him, keeping him safe with their bodies.

Vogel knows they're family, then.

~

Vogel gets a little older, but there's not much difference. They start taking him out with the Rowdies during the day. Vogel's not sure whether he prefers being alone for hours on end, or the constant poking and prodding and being tied down into a chair and being asked questions over and over until he's sick of the doctor's voice.

Martin hates that they've included Vogel in it. He calls them words that Vogel's papa would have blushed to hear. But mostly he hates that Vogel has to go through it.

More often than not, they abandon he bunk beds and sleep in a pile on the floor.

Vogel feels calmer with them. Safer. In their presence he feels in synch with everything. Being separated feels wrong. Being seperated starts to hurt, and continues to hurt, until he screams when they drag them into different rooms for testing.

Vogel becomes a part of the Rowdy Three, a real part. A physical and mental part.

He burrows into their warmth and lets them burrow into his.

He relishes it.

~

The first time he does it, he is eleven, and he feels better than he has in ages. Doctor Grey won't stop asking questions, forever asking questions, endlessly, and Vogel's hungry. Hungrier than he has been in years and he doesn't know how it happens, just knows that it feels natural and right and good when it does happen.

Jut knows he can't stop himself, and that he doesn't actually, particularly want to, either, even as he can feel her weakening, fading...

He draws on the blue light filtering out of Doctor Grey's crumpled body until guards march in and knock him out with the butt of their gun.

~

There's blood on Martin's hands when he wakes up. Martin holds him close once he realises that Vogel's awake. Vogel shakes in his arms, whispers to him that he's scared, that he doesn't know what he did. The blood on Martin's hands is Vogel's, but the dried blood on his fists are not.

(There are bruises and scrapes on his knuckles, and the skin by the corner of his lip is going purple, but he keeps insisting to Vogel that he's fine.)

Cross hugs him, after Martin, and Gripps hugs him after that. Vogel feels dizzy. Martin tells him that they can all do what he did, he's not a monster or a weirdo like the guards or the scientists might call him. Vogel feels a little better for that.

He lies down with his head in Martin's lap, and Gripps and Cross use the shadows from a stolen flashlight to perform a little shadow puppet show.

Vogel falls asleep, but he falls asleep laughing.

~

When they break out, Vogel is sixteen, and Blackwing is all he can remember. Martin leads the storm, and they use the blue light trick on everyone they meet; on guards, on wayward doctors, on a scrawny little ginger kid in a jumpsuit.

Martin and Gripps hold his hands on the way out, never mind that Vogel isn't a little kid anymore. Cross powers ahead of them with a club that he found on the ground. They make it out alive, and Vogel gulps down the fresh air and the freedom. They run into the night.

(He can't help thinking that he's escaped the dragon, alive, and saved the princess, after all.)

~

Martin bleaches his hair and steals scissors and products to cut it and make it stand up on end. Gripps steals a vest and a beanie. Cross lets his hair grow out and lets Vogel tie it back however he wants, whenever he wants.

They're wild. And Vogel likes that.

~

The puppet shows never truly stop, but they're reserved for somber occasions, like when Vogel gets sick or hurt, which is way too often for any of their likings, or when they get too bored, and there's nothing left to wreck.

Martin never stops teasing him for the princess story, but Vogel never truly feels embarrassed.

They drive and they wreck stuff and they feed on the blue energy scared people on the ground give them.

Vogel lives, outside of Blackwing, better than he ever did inside.

~

"What's your favourite movie?" Amanda asks him, one night, when Vogel's left awake in their puppy pile. Amanda almost always refuses to join, telling them that she'll probably be crushed.

"What's a movie?" Vogel asks, in response.

"It's like a story but with real people, acting it out, and telling you the story through dialogue and showing you what they're doing."

Vogel thinks back to Gripps and Cross and Martin running their hands through his hair, coming away sticky with blood and trying to cheer him up with shadow puppets.

"My favourite movie doesn't have a name." He tells her, honestly.

Amanda shrugs. "See, I'm a hardcore _Die Hard_ fan, here, but you do you."

She doesn't understand, but she's like them, in a way, and Vogel's already opened his heart to her the way the Rowdies did for him when he woke up in Martin's bunk bed, dreaming of rescuing the princess who lived in that big, echoey room.

  
**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. If you like doing this (or didn't as the case may be) please consider leaving me a comment and/or a kudos, and let me know what's youbthiught of the fic. Track me down on Tumblr @nose-coffee. You can prompt me, or just scream at me about Dirk Gently, becaus ei will gladly scream back.
> 
> Again, thank you!


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